Where Evil Comes From
by BritChick101
Summary: There are some things in Doctor Who that we just accept as facts, like the fact that bad guys are evil. But why are they evil?
1. Chapter 1

"Where are we going now?" Jenny asked excitedly

"Don't you ever stop?" the Doctor asked her, looking up from the console. He had meant to be stern, encourage her to calm down, but the expectant look on her face was too much for him, so he grinned back and changed his mind. He had been doing that a lot lately, ever since he had re-found his daughter on a deserted planet next to a crashed space-ship.

"I thought we'd go to Barcelona, how does that sound?" he asked her

"The planet Barcelona? Wow that sounds fantastic, I always wanted to go there!" she told him, her smile lighting up her eyes, melting the doctor's heart in a way that only she could. He turned and grinned at her, before bashing the handbrake down, and steering the TARDIS in the direction of the chosen planet.

Suddenly, the Doctor froze. Jenny stood for a moment confused as to why he had stopped so suddenly. If he didn't do something soon, he would stall the TARDIS and he got mad when she did that.

"Dad? What's wrong?" she asked tentatively. The Doctor said nothing, but held his palm up to her as a signal that she should be quiet. He was concentrating hard on something, and didn't want her to break his concentration.

"There!" he whispered suddenly, making Jenny jump. "Did you hear that?" Jenny shook her head. The Doctor rammed the handbrake back on and quickly ran up the stairs, his daughter close behind him. They had barely started searching the wardrobe for the intruder the Doctor was sure they would find, when the TARDIS jerked to life.

"Dad! What's going on?" Jenny squealed at her father.

"Did I put the handbrake on?" he asked. "I must have put the handbrake on; I always put the handbrake on!" Eyes wide, the doctor ran back down the stairs, followed so closely by Jenny that she crashed into him when he suddenly stopped about halfway down.

Confused, Jenny looked around to see what had made her father stop; nothing ever seemed to stop him once he got going. But when she saw what he was staring at, she understood immediately. Stood in the control room at the bottom of the stairs was a girl, about the same age as Jenny. She had long dark brown curly hair, and was wearing a sort of brown jump-suit, black gloves and knee-high black boots. Around her neck was a pendant that really didn't go with the rest of her outfit; it was bright red, blue and green on a gold chain. There was a holster for a gun around her waist, which the Doctor and Jenny were both glad to see was empty. But the fact that the girl was there wasn't what had made the doctor stop; people randomly appeared in his ship from time to time, he was starting to get used to it. What had made the Doctor stop was the fact that this girl, who he had never seen before was_ operating the TARDIS._ And it wasn't just a case of pressing random buttons either, this girl _knew_ what she was doing.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked her.

"That's not important" she said quickly, without looking up.

"How did you get in here?"

"That's not important either."

The Doctor and Jenny moved slowly down the rest of the stairs and stood next to the console that the girl was now moving slowly round, pushing buttons, twiddling dials and pulling levers as she went. Jenny was scared. Not of the girl, that wasn't scary, that was weird, and weird was something she was used to. No, Jenny was scared of the Doctor. She could see something in his face, a sort of anger deep in his eyes that she didn't like.

The strange woman reached for another leaver; the handbrake, but before she could disable it and send them hurtling off to a time and place of her choosing, possibly with others like her with holsters that weren't quite so empty, the Doctor grabbed her wrist.

"I asked you a question." He said, almost through gritted teeth.

"Actually you asked me two. And I answered both of them." The girl told him calmly, looking straight into his eyes. For some reason this angered the doctor even more. He would never admit it, not even to himself, but he was scared, and unlike Jenny, it was this girl he was scared of. He couldn't explain it, it just was. It reminded him of how it had been with Jack, and how the TARDIS had travelled to the end of time to try and escape him; the Doctor had an overwhelming urge to grab Jenny and run as fast as he could in the opposite direction of this strange girl.

He let go of her wrist, but to Jenny's surprise, she didn't go for the handbrake. Instead she sighed and turned towards both of them, leaning against the console. "Look, I'm sorry ok, I had no other choice. And I thought my diversion would keep you for longer, so I didn't think you'd even see me at all. Stupid of me, I know, I mean, it's the oldest trick in the book, and you wrote the book. What I'm trying to say is…" The girl sighed "I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"Where are you taking us?" Jenny asked, a spark of excitement in her voice at the idea of going somewhere new that maybe even the doctor had seen before,

"I'm not taking you anywhere. I'm sort of, getting a lift, and then sending you back where you were going before." The girl had expected this to calm the pair of them down, but it had the opposite effect.

"You can't take us somewhere but not let us see-"

"-think you can just barge in here and take over-"

"-new and exciting and interesting-"

"-not even a single explanation-"

"-just a couple of minutes to see what it's like-"

"-and I don't care how hypocritical I sound-"

"ENOUGH!" the girl roared, sending Jenny and the Doctor into a shocked silence. Neither of them had realised until that moment that they were shouting, or even knew why they were so annoyed. "Shut up, and sit down" the girl commanded.

"But-"the doctor started

"Now." the girl told him, her voice loaded with authority and warning. Something about it reminded Jenny of the Doctor when he was talking to people who did bad things or put other people in danger. They both did as they were told and sat on the chairs next to the console.

"Stay there, and, I don't know, breathe through your nose or something. I forgot about the whole Time Lord thing. You know, I always wondered why you didn't react like this when we first met, but you were both acclimatised by then! Never mind…it'll all make sense to you sooner or later."

As she said this, the girl changed a few TARDIS settings via the screen, before turning off the handbrake, sending them hurtling through the vortex towards her destination.

"Wait a second, could you read that?" the Doctor asked suddenly. Both girls turned to him, surprised. Jenny was expecting a question more like 'what are you talking about'. Then again her father never really did what anyone expected him to do.

"Read what?" the girl asked.

"The writing, the gallifreyan writing on the screen." He exclaimed, pointing wildly, his voice getting oddly high pitched. The girl simply nodded.

"But… but, the TARDIS doesn't translate writing in here, who taught you?"

The column in the middle of the console stopped moving as he said this, causing the whirring to come to an end, enveloping them in silence.

"The same person that taught me how to drive the TARDIS. The man who taught me how to put it on auto as soon as the doors close. When I go, she's going to take you to Barcelona. Please don't follow me. The less you know about this right now the better."

When neither the Doctor nor Jenny said anything, the girl walked over to the doors and left without another word. And the second she closed the door behind her, the TARDIS whirred into life again, whisking them away to somewhere new. But in the same instant, the doctor was on his feet, racing around the console, trying to get them back to the time and place the girl had left. After two circuits, he grabbed the screen and, after putting on his glasses, analysed what was going in.

"Aaarghh! Oh this girl is good, almost too good!"

"Well she said she learned from the best" Jenny reminded him with a smile.

"She never said that." Her father told her, shooting her a perplexed look.

"Well who else could she have learned all that from?" the blonde girl pointed out. The Doctor sighed.

"I don't know" he said. "I really don't know,

At that moment the monitor beeped, distracting the Doctor away from his daughter again. "Ahh! The TARDIS has managed to save the previous location! Jumpsuit Girl wasn't that clever after all!"

"Are we going after her dad?" Jenny asked as her father bounded around the room, pulling levers almost randomly. Jenny couldn't help thinking that even if Jumpsuit couldn't outsmart the doctor (and, honestly, who can?) she was at the very least a better driver than him. "She did ask us not to follow her." She pointed out.

"I thought you had more curiosity in you than that Jenny" he said, as he pulled one last lever, bringing them to a stop with a jolt. "Are you telling me you actually don't want to know what she didn't want us to see?"

Jenny thought about it for a moment, weighing up the pros and cons. It wasn't exactly a hard decision though. Simultaneously, the pair of them grinned at each other, before racing towards the door, and the unknown world that lay beyond.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor and Jenny stepped out of the TARDIS and found themselves in the middle of a long grey, windowless corridor, dimly lit by flickering lights along the ceiling and the edges of the floor. Jenny grimaced as she looked round. It was dirty and smelled funny, and there was a funny looking stain on the wall that looked suspiciously like blood.

"Where are we?" she whispered.

"About 10 meters away from where the girl landed."

"Ok, but where are we?"

"No idea"

The pair grinned at each other and set off hand in hand down the corridor. It was dark and twisty turney, and it wasn't long before the smiles were gone from their faces. After a while, Jenny got a bit worried. They passed several doors (automatic slidey ones, that the Doctor said meant they were on a space station) but there had been no-one in any of the rooms, only broken furniture that looked like it had been torn apart by some sort of animal.

"Dad, you know you said she was 10 meters away? 10 meters in which direction? Are you sure we're going the right way?

The Doctor paused. "Well…. Even if we're not, she can't be far away. And I'm not sure if I want to run into her again anyway. Something about her was… wasn't right."

Jenny knew exactly what he meant. The girl had made her nervous, squeamish, and other things as well. But at the same time, something about her had been almost familiar, like they had met before.

They carried on in silence for a few more minutes, until they finally reached a door at the end of the corridor. It was big and grey, with a complicated looking console next to it. And it was locked, but obviously this was no problem to the owner of a sonic screwdriver.

The room on the other side of the corridor was completely different. Actually the word "room" was an understatement; it was a huge hall, with a ridiculously high ceiling, gold and cream panelling around the walls, and tiles on the floor that were so shiny they were almost reflective (Jenny couldn't help but think that was a male idea; no woman would want to wear a skirt in a room with a mirrored floor). But it was bright and light and airy and clean, with one wall made completely of glass revealing a beautiful galaxy of stars.

"Trust you to land us in the part of the station that hasn't been used in years" Jenny said with a smile. "It's actually pretty nice here."

"Hmm" said the Doctor, for once not smiling back.

"Come on; let's go have a look round."

The Doctor looked torn for a moment. "Please?" she asked him, almost resorting to battering her eyelashes, totally melting her father's hearts.

"All right, but lets try not to be seen, okay?" He smiled at his daughter as she grasped his hand and pulled him across the room to a slidey door opposite them. On the other side was another corridor, similar to the one they had arrived in, but cleaner and brighter and nicer. There were several more slidey doors, and they approached the nearest one.

Jenny slapped the button on the right of the door, opening it to reveal, to the Doctor's dismay, what appeared to be a control room, filled with computer screens and complicated looking machinery all centred around some kind of platform in the middle of the room. Operating the machines were 4 people; an extremely tall blonde man, a woman with short black hair and a blue tint to her skin, a short dark skinned man wearing thick rimmed glasses and a muscular guy with red-brown hair. They were dressed in similar outfits to that of the girl from the TARDIS except, as Jenny had feared, they all had bulky guns in the holsters at their hips. Jenny and the Doctor stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, like a rabbit in the headlights, unsure of whether to run away, walk confidently in, or just let themselves be spotted and deal with the consequences.

They didn't have time to decide; before they had chance to think never mind move, the room had gone silent, as each of the jumpsuit-wearing people turned to look at the strangers. The tall blonde man leapt into action and pointed his bulky gun at the time-lords.

"Who are you?" he asked in a voice full of authority and danger. The Doctor and Jenny put their hands up to show they were unarmed, and stepped forward out of the doorway so they could be seen clearly. They had done it so many times that it was instinctive, but for some reason, no less scary.

"I'm-"the Doctor had been about to introduce himself, but suddenly wasn't sure whether he should. Jumpsuit-girl had told him not to follow her; was it because the people here would harm him and Jenny? He would risk his own life for information, but he wasn't about to risk his daughter's. "I'm John Smith, and this is my daughter. We're a bit lost; could you tell us where we are please?"

The blonde man didn't look impressed and Jenny could see that he didn't believe a word of her dad's story. She wanted to say something or do something that would help, but she couldn't think of anything that wouldn't end with them being shot. Jenny defiantly didn't want to get shot; she had been there before and knew that it wasn't fun.

Suddenly there was another, more familiar voice filling the room. "Put away the gun Braxton, it's him." The other people started whispering and muttering among themselves as jumpsuit-girl herself stepped out from behind one of the machines. The blonde man, Braxton, hesitated and lowered his gun slightly but did not put it away.

"But… are you sure?" he asked. The girl gave him a withering look.

"Of course I'm sure, do you think I wouldn't recognise him? Holster your weapon." The man didn't move. "NOW!" the girl yelled, and in a sudden burst of terror, Braxton shoved the gun back into its holster. Even though this girl was at least a foot shorter than him, unarmed and at least 5 years his junior, he looked scared. Jenny didn't blame him either; the girl radiated authority in such a way that she could make an expert second guess himself if her opinion was different. _Just like the Doctor_ she found herself thinking.

The girl wasn't done yet. "You" she said in a threatening voice, turning to the Doctor. "You were told not to follow me. You were meant to be going to Barcelona."

The Doctor relaxed and put his hands into his coat pockets; he was a lot happier now that there were o guns pointed in his direction.

"Well, you know me, or at least you say you do; since when did I ever follow orders?" The girl looked annoyed, but the blue skinned woman laughed.

"He's got you there hon." She told the girl.

"Anyway" the Doctor continued "I have a bone to pick with you. How did you get on board my TARDIS without setting off the alarms?"

"How did you get on board my space station?" the girl replied.

"That's easy" Jenny said, feeling a little left out of the showdown. "We came by TARDIS."

"And that answers your father's question" the girl told them with a small smile. "You used your time machine and I used mine."

Jenny was slightly shocked. She had never seen a time machine before, apart from the TARDIS of course, but that was special so didn't really count.

"You have a time machine? Where?" she asked the girl, who was now quietly discussing something with one of her colleagues.

"Look around Jenny dear. _This_ is my time machine."

Jenny looked around and had to admit that there were defiantly enough buttons and switches for it to be. Jenny was about to ask more questions, but was stopped by an alarm sounding from one of the computer screens. The man in the glasses sat down in front of it and started typing.

"What is it Sorrell?" the girl asked, Doctor-like urgency in her voice.

"Erm… I… I can't explain it, they just… they just went."

"Went where?"

I don't know, we just… we lost them."

"_What?!_" The girl rushed over and stared at the screen over Sorrell's shoulder. "How is that even possible?"

"I don't know" Sorrell whispered "Unless…" His voice trailed off and he looked up at the Doctor and Jenny. The girl looked between the screen and the Doctor a few times before her eyes widened, showing she had understood what her colleague had meant. She straightened up and took a step towards the Doctor. She looked scared.

"Doctor, where did you park? Where did you leave the TARDIS?" Jenny and the Doctor looked at each other. When the Doctor didn't answer, Jenny did. The fact that the girl was so scared was a bit freaky.

"At the end of a corridor on the other side of the big room with the huge window."

The girl thought for a moment, then closed her eyes. The man with the red-brown hair looked up suddenly. "But that's… that's Corridor 49!" he exclaimed. The girl nodded and opened her eyes, taking another step forward. She was almost shaking now, and it showed in her eyes and in her voice.

"Doctor, Jenny, listen to me, this is extremely important, this is… this is life or death; did you lock the door behind you when you got into the room with the huge window?"

Jenny thought about it. She had to admit it didn't seem likely. In theory it sounded like the sort of thing the Doctor would do, leaving everything as they found it so that everything happened as it should, but in reality she knew that it was unlikely they had even closed the big door, never mind locking it behind them. They had been so caught up in the excitement of the moment that they had never even given it a thought. She shook her head.

Taking Jenny's gesture as her answer, the girl started yelling orders, and the team followed them, without question or hesitation. "Braxton, Ray, go and see if you can see where they went. Arm yourselves, and don't let them see you; with any luck they'll still be in the Great Hall and we can heard them back in. Celia, secure exit routes, just in case. Sorrell, I want those power relays back online now, I have a feeling we're going to need them."

The Doctor was confused. Things were happening around him, and he didn't really understand what was going on. He had and inkling that this was what his companions felt like all the time. He didn't like it; he wondered how they did it. He grasped the girl's arm as she was about to check another computer monitor, and looked her straight in the eye.

"What is going in?" he asked.

"Tharl." The girl whispered.

Jenny didn't know what a Tharl was but her father suddenly shared the same look of intense fear as the girl.

"What?" he whispered, hoping he had miss-heard her.

"Tharl, Doctor. We have seven of them on board."

"Seven? Are you _mad_? Are you suicidal?"

"They all live on Corridor 49, confined to one area of the station. We have CCTV on them, and monitor them around the clock, and we have a resident zoologist! We took all the necessary precautions, until _someone_ decided to go and open the door!"

"Hang on!" yelled the Doctor, letting go of the girl's arm, almost in disgust. "Are you blaming this on _me_?"

"Oh no!" the girl yelled back, her voice loaded with sarcasm. "How could I ever blame anything on you, the saintly Doctor? Always helping people, never harming a single soul in the process! Never doing a single thing wrong! How could I be so insolent as to blame anything on you?"

The atmosphere in the room was as thick as custard as Sorrell and Jenny watched the Doctor to see what his response would be to this outburst. He looked like he was trying to suppress his rage, but he didn't seem to be doing it very well. Jenny was scared. She almost wished the men with the guns would come back.

"You think you know about my life do you?" the Doctor almost whispered, stepping towards the girl. "You know nothing at all!"

"Oh I know more than you think. I know about your past, your present and your future. And I wish I didn't, I wish with both of both of my hearts that I didn't but I do."

The doctor was about to respond, but stopped; she had said… but she couldn't have… she couldn't be… could she? But he never got the chance to ask her, because at that moment the two men, Ray and Braxton, came running through the main door, heaving it shut behind them.

"They saw us!" Ray announced, "Some are in pursuit."

The girl hurriedly wiped a tear from her cheek. "Sorrell!" she yelled.

"Locking doors Commander, already on it!" he replied, frantically typing commands into a different computer.

"How many?" she asked, turning back to Ray and Braxton, who were both out of breath.

"I don't know exactly, erm…"

"Four, I think, four of them."

"_Four_?! Right. Okay then."

The blue woman walked into the room, and the girl turned and looked at her expectantly.

"Exit routs secured." She announced to the room.

"Good, cos we're going to need them. Take the Doctor and Jenny down there and keep them safe. Ray, go with them, and take a big gun. Sorrell, power up. Brax, log on and locate the other three."

Again the room was a flurry of activity; Sorrell started running round flicking switches and monitoring readouts, Braxton sat at a computer, and Ray went to a cupboard and took out the biggest gun Jenny had ever seen, and she had seen a fair few. The Doctor only realized these people were serious about him leaving when Celia grasped Jenny's hand and Ray nudged his shoulder with the big gun, herding them towards the back exit.

"Hang on!" he cried "You're not serious about me running and hiding are you?" he asked the girl, who appeared to be helping Sorrell.

"You're not meant to be here. If you get hurt here it could create a paradox of ridiculous proportions. You might be willing to take that chance but I'm not, and as it's me in charge here today, you're going with Ray and Celia. Go!"

The doctor stood deadly still for a minute. He couldn't remember anyone speaking to him like that in a long time. There had been people like Donna who had shouted at him, but no-body had managed to convey enough authority to actually make him think about doing what they said. This girl reminded him of, well, of himself. A strange thought crossed his mind. Was it possible that she _was _him? She seemed to know everything about him, and no-body had mentioned a name, and she had made veiled references to the fact that she had known him in her past; was it possible that she had _been _him in her past? He stopped. He was being daft; he wasn't going to become a woman, he refused.

"Jenny" he said finally "Go with Ray and Celia."

"What?" Jenny and the girl cried at the same time.

"I'm not going anywhere without you." Jenny told him stubbornly

"And you're not staying up here." The girl added.

"Actually, you're both wrong. I can be helpful up here, and Jenny, sorry but Jumpsuit Girl is right, it's too dangerous up here." The Doctor announced to the room."

The girls both looked ready to argue, but were stopped by a loud clang on the door to the hallway. Everyone stopped and looked at the door. There was already a dent in it. As they watched, there was another clang, this one slightly louder, deepening the dent.

"Alright, you can stay!" the girl cried. "Celia, Ray, Jenny, go. No arguments Jenny." Jenny wanted to argue anyway, but the look on her father's face and the clanging on the door, along with the scary gun in Ray's hands made her think again. She hesitated, wanting to say goodbye, to give her dad a hug, but Celia, the blue woman grabbed her hand and pulled her out of a door at the back of the room and down a dimly lit hallway.

There was another clang on the door, this time leaving a crack in the metal.

"That door's solid rhenium diboride, it should slow them down, right?" Braxton whispered uncertainly.

"Slow them down but not stop them. It's already cracked." Sorrell whispered back. "Commander, what do we do?"

All eyes were suddenly on the girl. And she looked worried. _She doesn't have a plan _the Doctor found himself thinking. _She never prepared any emergency protocols._ _We're all going to die here… and I can't even get to the TARDIS to get us out of here._

No sooner had he thought this, the girl sprung into action. She ran to a console with a sudden burst of energy, and started pushing puttons.

"HA!" she cried suddenly turning to the three men, triumph on her face.

"You have a plan?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh yes."

"Are you going to tell us?" Braxton asked anxiously looking at the widening crack in the door.

"Sort of." She replied. "Brax, I need you to transfer the controls of that console to that computer over there; Sorrell, Doctor, I need you to construct the highest level energy wall you can across the room." The men would normally have questioned her, but the urgency of the situation was mounting and if this girl had a plan that could save them, who were they to quiz her about it? They got on with their appointed jobs, and within 5 minutes, they were ready, stood opposite the door just behind where the energy ewall was going to be generated.

"Commander, we're ready." Sorrell said pointedly.

"Then power up." The girl replied, looking up from the console she had been working at. The three men looked at each other.

"You need to come to this side of the wall" Braxton pointed out.

"No I don't" the girl told them. "Activate it."

"I can't" Sorrell objected.

The girl sighed and pushed a series of buttons on a computer. Instantly the energy wall fizzled into action, seperating the three men from her.

"What are you doing?!" the Doctor cried out. The girl was being stupid, suicidal. She had just effetivley trapped herself in a room in which four angry tharl were about to gain access to; the crack in the door was quickly turning into a rip that the creatures would soon burst through.

"Don't worry, I have a plan." She informed them, pushing buttons on another console.

"Get out of there! Turn off the wall!" the Doctor cried, both angry and terrified for this stupid girl and the mess that she had got herself and her doting colleuges into. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his sonic screwdriver, turning it on the control pannel, desperatly trying to turn off the energy wall. Nothing happened.

"Don't bother, she has the whole place deadlocked." Sorrell told him quietly. The doctor lowered the sonic and looked out at the girl, his face wracked with despair and angst.

"I have a plan!" she assured him again.

A second later their time was up, as the creatures finally won their battle with the door. As the first one stepped through, time seemed to freeze; no body dared to breathe, not even the Doctor. He had never actually seen a tharl before, and their reputation was enough that he had never wanted to. The animal rezembled a sort of cross between the werewolf he had seen when visiting Queen Victoria, and the Lazarus creature he had defeated with the help of Martha. It was bald, with leathery brown skin, a long nose, a long tail, and incredably sharp teeth and claws. In short it was as terrifying as he had heard it was.

It walked towards the girl, and the Doctor knew that there was nothing that he could do...


	3. Chapter 3

The first creature was followed by two more that were about the same size, and one smaller one that must have been a child. For the moment they were peroccupied with exploring the room, but once they smelled fresh meat, the Doctor knew that would change.

"Sorrell" the girl breathed, desperatly trying to get his attention, but not the attention of the tharl. "Go over to that computer and start the power-up sequence."

"But… but that would… oh!"

The Doctor and Braxton looked at each other. Apparently Sorrell now inderstood the plan. The Doctor didn't like this feeling of not knowing what was going on; it had happened once before and he had vowed to himself that he would never let it happen again. He wanted to go and ask Sorrell what was happening, or call out to the stupid girl on the other side of the energy wall, but he daren't move or speak incase he got the attention of the tharl, which could end up being deadly for Jmpsuit Girl.

Sorrell was now pressing buttons with amazing speed, causing something to whirr loudly, and the platform that the girl was stood on to light up.

"Stop!" the Doctor called out, but it was too late. Whatever Sorrell was doing had caused the tharl to notice that there was something edable in the centre of the room.

"Commander, stay still, okay, don't move a muscle." Braxton ordered.

"I have to." She told him. "I need all of them on the platform, and I don't really want to be here when Sorrell activates it."

"You mean we're going to-"

"Yes." The girl interupted.

"Not a bad idea, if I may say so." Braxton was clearly impressed.

"You may. Sorrell, are we ready?"

"Almost commander!"

"Get a move on, whatever you're doing!" The doctor felt very left out now. He was the only person who didn't know what was going on and he really didn't like it at all. He could only watch, helpless with horror.

While they had been having this conversation, the tharl had devised a plan of action to catch their dinner. They were all approaching the platform from different angles, leaving their intended prey with only one escape route. She took it, slowly backing away towards the energy wall. Even she looked scared now. Maybe this hadn't been the best of ideas… but it was too late to turn back now.

"Ready!" Sorrell cried triumphantly.

"Good" she whispered. "Activate on my command."

She took another step back, off the platform. The creatures were getting worryingly close now; everyone held their breath.

"Commander?" Sorrell clearly thought that this had gone on long enough.

"Wait for it... wait for it…" The smallest tharl stepped forward, onto the platform. Clearly excited, it growled at the girl, who squared her shoulders and took another step back. All of the tharl were now on the platform, and one of them was bending forward, almost as if it was going to pounce.

"Commander…" Braxton warned.

"Wait for it" she told him again, taking another step back, now inches from her colleagues.

It happened so fast, had the Doctor blinked he could have missed it. The tharl pounced, and the girl yelled an order to Sorrell, who pressed a button on his computer. The room was filled with a blinding light, that even the Doctor had to shield his eyes from, and the whirring became almost deafening. Then it was gone. And so were the tharl.

The girl went over to a console and turned off the energy wall, before turning around and grinning at them all. She was clearly very pleased with herself.

"Where did they go?" the Doctor asked, cringing at having to ask such a rookie question.

"That," the girl told him, pointing to the platform, "is my time machine."

The Doctor thought about it for a moment. "You… sent them back in time?"

"I sent them back in time.

"I always wondered how they got there." Braxton said with a thoughtful expression. The girl laughed.

"Come on" she told them. "Let's go and get Jenny, then get you two on your way." The Doctor smiled. Talk about role reversal.

* * *

20 minutes later the Doctor finaly breathed again as he held his daughter in his arms. He hadn't realised how tense he had been until he relaxed. Jenny was the most important thing in the whole of space and time to him, and nothing, no tharl, no daleks, no… creepy girls in brown jumpsuits were ever going to make him let her out of his sight ever again.

He remembered this thought later, and hated himself for it.

The Doctor had his arm around Jenny as they followed the crew down a corridor, up some stairs and round a corner. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, he was just happy to be re-united with the pretty blonde girl beside him. He just wanted to get her back to the TARDIS and to whisk her away form the dangers of this place.

The quiet man, Sorrell, tapped the Doctor on the shoulder, and he turned round. What he saw made him go weak at the knees. There was no time to think; he grabbed Jenny's hand and yelled one word

"RUN!"

As predictable as ever, instead of following the command immediatley, the others turned around to see what was causing all of the panic. And they all regretted it.

Behind them was a tharl. It was bigger than the ones in the control room, with what looked like scars on it's face. It was the scariest thing they had ever seen, and that was saying something. They ran. They ran for their lives. And the creature followed them.

The Doctor didn't know how it happened, but somehow he lost Jenny. One moment she was at his side, holding his hand, keeping up with him , and the next she was gone. And so were the others. On the plus side the tharl was gone too, but he didn't have a clue where he was, or where they had gone. Had he taken a wrong turning? He backtracked down the corridor, but nothing looked familiar; he had been concentrating so much on getting away that he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going. And now he was lost.

* * *

"What do you mean you don't know where he is?!" The girl was furious. She looked aroung the Great Hall at her crew, but none of them answered her. She took several deep breaths. If she wasn't careful she could lose control in front of Jenny, and that was a risk she couldn't take.

"Go and look for him." She commanded. "Me and Jenny will stay here, incase he turns up. Find him and bring him back here so we can get them back to the TARDIS and fix this mess. GO!"

The crew divided into pairs and headed for the door. The girl closed it behind them and colapsed to the floor, her back against the cold metal of the door, her head in her hands.

"Are you okay?" a quiet voice asked.

"Stressed. And tired. It never changes with him. It's always the same, one problem after another. And it has to be fixed Jenny. Even if it means constructing a time machine and trecking through half of history to do it."

Jenny was about to respond, but there was a clang on the other side of the door, making them both jump.

"Maybe we should go and get the TARDIS, and bring it back here. You can drive it, just as well as dad can. Let's go and get it and bring it back here. And maybe we could use it to find him, before that creature does."

The girl smiled "You had me at 'drive'."

Minutes later, the two girls were wandering down the deserted corridor, hunting for the TARDIS. The corridor looked even more ominous to Jenny than it had earlier; she couldn't decide whether it was because her dad was missing, or because she had seen one of the creatures that had made all the scratches and destroyed all of the furnature. They both knew that it was a very real posssability that there was another tharl still in the corridor somewhere, but neither of them mentoined it, prefering to walk in silence towards their destination.

It took about 10 minutes to locate the Doctor. He was wandering the halls aimlessly, trying to find something he recognised. When found, he made some grumbled remark about the whole ship looking the same, and followed them back to the Hall in moody silence.

"Where's Jenny?" he asked, looking around the room.

"We think they went to get the TARDIS" Celia answered quietly.

"They what?" The Doctor was stunned. It was the worst plan he had ever heard. They had wandered off, which was against his only rule, and more than that, they had wandered into danger; there was always a creature protecting the nest, it was instinctual.

He didn't say any of this to the crew; there wasn't time. He dashed off towards the door, ignoring the big man's offer of a gun, running down the deserted corridor after his daughter.

"He's almost as unpredictable as she is" Sorrell whispered. The others couldn't help agreeing.

Jenny and the girl found the TARDIS with no problems. It was exactly where they had left it, not a scratch on her. Jenny unlocked the door and they stepped inside. The girl stopped and smiled.

"It always manages to surprise me, this thing." She told Jenny.

"Because it's bigger on the inside?" mocked the blonde.

"Because it's magnificent" the other girl answered. She stepped forward, a dazed expression on her face, and gently ran her hand over the control pannel almost lovingly. "I missed it." She whispered.

"Why did you give it up?" Jenny asked without thinking. "I don't think I ever could."

The girl's expression changed from one of happiness to one of pain. "He died" she said quietly, averting her yes and busying herself with one of the controls.

Jenny was in shock. Surely she hadn't heard right, or she had missunderstood… the Doctor couldn't have… "died?" she whispered.

"Yes" the girl answered without looking up "He was killed. Murdered. By the one other man I thought I could trust. I was right there watching and there was nothing I could do. I thought I-" the girl's voice broke, and Jenny noticed tears running down her face. "I was in love with him Jenny, and then he killed him."

Jenny didn't know what to say. At some point in the future, some point after they met this girl, her dad was going to be killed by someone that this girl was in love with.

"So you built a time machine and decided to go back and change it?" Jenny whispered eventually. The girl looked her squarely in the eye.

"Wouldn't you?"

The pair stood in silence for a minute, giving each other time to dry their eyes and compose themselves.

"Let's go and get your dad" the girl said, as if nothing had happened. Pulling a lever, she spurred the TARDIS into action, causing the familiar whiring sound to fill their ears.

* * *

The creature sniffed the air and snarled. The others had left ages ago… too long ago. They should have been back by now.

It was bored. It was the most juniour of the pack that was old enough to be left guarding the nest, so it was always the one to be left behind. It wanted to hunt it's own dinner for a change.

Suddenly it heard a sound, a strange whirring sound. The same strange whirring sound they had heard earlier, before they had discovered the possability of meat in the area.

The creature grinned and turned in the direction the whirring was coming from. That sound meant food. And the creature was hungry.


End file.
